


The Soles of Our Shoes Are All Worn Down

by runsinthefamily



Series: Purgatory [13]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Comfort, Purgatory, dead angel, trueform!Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 01:45:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runsinthefamily/pseuds/runsinthefamily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <img/>
</p><p>(I couldn't find the original source for this image. If anyone knows, please let me know and I'll attribute properly. It's glow worms in a cave in New Zealand, apparently.)</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Soles of Our Shoes Are All Worn Down

**Author's Note:**

> (I couldn't find the original source for this image. If anyone knows, please let me know and I'll attribute properly. It's glow worms in a cave in New Zealand, apparently.)

**_An angel died here. A long time ago._** Cas stands with his heads tipped upward, contemplating the ceiling. He’s tall enough to reach up and gently touch it, sweeping his fingertips delicately through the phosphorescence that clung to the rock. It brightens where he stirs it, as though he is rousing it partially from slumber, and then fades again, slowly. 

Lightbulb warbles sadly to himself, bumping against stalactites and not-quite-touching the scattered, shattered Grace.

“Who?” Dean turns a slow circle, taking in the massive expanse of light. Now that he’s looking, he can see a pattern to it. There’s the outline of wings, and that was likely a leg … “And how?”

 ** _The war when Lucifer fell was all encompassing_** , says Cas. ** _It touched all the realms. But it has been too long. I - can no longer tell who this might have been_**. There is sorrow in his voice, deep as oceans. 

“I bet Lightbulb knew him,” says Dean, watching the little guy shiver between two strands.

 ** _I think Lightbulb_ was _him_** , says Cas. He reaches out an arm and Lightbulb flees into the wide grey cushion of his palm. 

“You mean - he’s all that’s left of this guy?” Dean looks from the small brightness in Cas’ hand to the dim shimmer on the ceiling. “How is that possible?”

 ** _I don’t know. But there is the same resonance in both these remnants and in Lightbulb._** Cas closes his fingers gently, protectively, around Lightbulb. **_No wonder you weep, little brother._**

“Could we put him back together, somehow?” Dean stretches out a hand to where a luminous thread hangs, just barely out of reach. A fine hum sets up house in the nerve ends in his fingertips.

 ** _No._** Cas steps over to Dean, incongruously agile despite his size, and pushes Dean’s hand down with one finger. 

“But if it was his -“

**_On earth, you see the charred remnants of wings. Here, you see this. But they are the same. There is nothing here that is divine, anymore._ **

Lightbulb keens and the sound makes Dean’s throat close up painfully. 

“Can’t we do anything for him?” he asks.

 ** _Sometimes there is nothing to be done,_** says Cas. 

“Bullshit,” says Dean. 

**_What would you have me do? I could smite him, I suppose,_** says Cas. The ram head tosses, shaking its horns. 

“Don’t be an asshole,” Dean says and then yanks on the fabric of Cas’ toga/skirt thing. “Give him here.”

Cas tips his hand sideways and Lightbulb tumbles down into Dean’s cupped hands.

“Hey,” he says, bringing his hands up to his face. He breathes out, gently, watches the resultant flare and shimmer of Lightbulb’s … essence? Body? It’s basically sentient light that he’s holding here. “Hey, shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay.” 

Lightbulb pings out something that sounds vaguely interrogative.

“We’re here. Not going anywhere, right Cas?”

 ** _Dean,_** says Cas, kneeling in a rustle of silk and feathers. **_We_ are _going somewhere. We’re leaving Purgatory._**

“Then he comes with,” says Dean. He cups his hands tighter, ignoring the sunburny feel that always came when Lightbulb got too upclose and personal with his skin.

Cas looks down at him, the strangely mobile substance of his ivory face registering concern and then fond resignation. His wings drop low, cupping Dean as carefully and tightly as Dean holds Lightbulb. **_As you say._**


End file.
